One of my favorite things to do -- no joke, whatsoever, not even a little bit -- is to stroll the aisles of the supermarket. I find it very soothing, for some reason, except for when I make the mistake of going shopping on Friday at 2, or a Sunday in the winter before a Giants game. In general though, it's a genuine pleasure, and food shopping is my favorite household - related chore, by far. Most of the time, I'm doing this in a fairly rushed fashion, but I always make my way down the produce aisles with care.

When my son (my first kid) was born, I had grand plans of feeding him whipped organic vegetables nurtured with pure rainwater and nestled on a bed of grass grown from previously untouched earth, from a remote mountain in Tibet. Or something...

Obviously, what began with the best of intentions slowly evolved from pure insanity into, well, normalcy. I fed him a mix of organic things and regular stuff, and figured out, bit by bit, what worked for us. By the time my daughter was born, I'd developed a true routine and plan in terms of what I was comfortable feeding my kids, without compromising what I wanted, but at the same time not going too far off the deep end (for me).

He's now almost six, and she's almost four, and I'm happy to say we've managed to keep that up. The biggest example of this, for me, is my walk down the produce aisle. I do buy organic apples, pears, strawberries and grapes. Bananas, avocados, pomegranates, oranges, and pretty much anything which has a peel or a thick skin, I shrug, and take my chances.

I've heard a lot of people bring in the price factorwhen it comes to eating organic stuff, but I have to say that I've found fantastic, competitive pricing at my local Trader Joe's, and the bi-weekly farmstand near my office. Now that it's becoming increasingly more mainstream, I've noticed my local grocery store greatly expanding their organic offerings, without too steep of an increased price over the regular stuff. When it comes down to a matter of (literally) twenty five cents' difference between the organic baby carrots and the regular ones, I'm happy to pony up the change.

What about you? Do you make an effort to seek out organic foods for you and your kids? If so, do you try to do so exclusively, or do you strike some sort of balance?

I don't tend to buy organic from the grocery stores because they are ridiculously expensive, But I do buy organic at the farmers market. However in northern Mi the farmers market is open 2-3 months a year.